Page 3 of Fated to be Enemies

Abbey came up behind her, wrapping her arms tightly around my mom. “And you did a damn good job,” she said. “Look how well our girls turned out. Scott would have been proud as hell if he were here to see this now.” While she spoke to my mom, she made eye contact with me, letting me know she had her. Reminding me it would be okay.

“I just miss him so much sometimes,” my mom said apologetically. She turned to hug Abbey back.

“And that’s okay. Missing someone when they’re gone is the price we pay for love.”

Adora came up, wrapping one arm around Mom and one around Abbey. She leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss our moms’ cheeks.

“We’ll be back late. Don’t wait up for us,” she said, though we both knew they would.

“You two watch out for each other tonight,” Abbey said, speaking to us over my mom’s shoulder. While my mother wasn’t exactly short, Abbey was quite tall. Just a smidge over six feet, she could easily look at us while embracing my mom. “Stay in No Man’s Land. Don’t even think about heading northside?—”

“We know,” Adora said.

“Don’t accept anything from strangers?—”

“We know.” My sister sighed while I squinted at our stepmom. It wasn’t like we didn’t know any of this. They’d been giving us this talk for over a decade now.

“Use protection, and don’t forget your fluorite stones?—”

“We know!” we both said in exasperation. The fluorite ring on my finger had never left my hand since the day my mom had given it to me. It signified our House, our pack within it, our protection. Shitty as my pack may have been at times, it was better than being without one. “Seriously, Abbey. We’ll be safe. I promise,” I added. She gave us both a smile and then nodded.

“Then have fun, and happy birthday, baby girls.”

I grabbed my keys off the hanger by the front door while Adora held it open for Nova to go out. My wolf brushed up against my side as she did, a comforting graze that conveyed she knew how much I didn’t like leaving, and she sympathized with it.

“Rowe’s in my room. If any assholes show up looking for her tonight . . .” I trailed off, but they got the gist.

My mom sniffled and lifted her head. “I might not be our pack’s Alpha Female anymore, but I can still put a wolf in their place.”

I glanced up at Abbey. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t kill some stupid punk,” she said.

Adora snorted, and I just nodded in thanks.

While Abbey would have been the more intimidating of the two if someone met them in an alley, my mom was crazy when it came to protecting her own. Her temper flared the second someone looked at us wrong, and that extended to Rowe since the first night we’d brought her over. It was half the reason I loved Abbey so much. She knew how to bring my mom down with her “calm juju,” as we called it. She exuded the peace of a still lake and tempered my mom’s fiery personality when needed.

“All right, let’s gooooo,” Adora said, gently pushing me toward the door. “We’ll never leave if I don’t make you, and I am not getting punished by the Alpha Supreme for disobeying a direct command.”

“Yep,” I said, following behind her. She dropped the tailgate open on my truck and Nova jumped in, tucking herself under the canvas canopy. I slid into the driver’s seat just as Adora closed it up. We were backing out of the driveway in no time, but as we were headed down the road, I couldn’t help a feeling that overcame me when I looked in the rearview mirror. The full moon skimmed just above the treetops, painting our house in an eerie light.

They said I’d been born on a cursed moon . . . but they never said what that had looked like. Had it glowed the same as the moon did tonight? What had been different about it? Had it been the color? The size?

Or had it been cursed because of a feeling in the air? An uneasiness that had settled in the blood, gradually seeping in like a potent poison? Or had it violently riled up the magic within us, stirring it into a frenzy that couldn’t be denied?

Between the options, I hoped it was simply the way the moon had looked, but something told me it wasn’t.

It was the same “something” that had been eating at me all week, ever since the day the attendance order had gone out. It was telling me not to go. To stay home. To run. To be anywhere except the commemoration on the full moon.

I’d ignored the voice, even as it whispered through me that soon it would be time to fight. To disobey. To rise.

Maybe I was crazy . . . or maybe it was a feeling in the air, sending me a warning sign.

Something like a cursed moon.

CHAPTER 2

Elias

Ihad no desire to attend the commemoration. Especially not this one. Year after year, it was the same charade. An event the House Leaders insisted on hosting annually to create the illusion that we were somehow better off now than we’d ever been. That tensions had abated, and the Houses were still at peace.

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